Genesis of a meme blogger

This is an appropriate time for me to start a blog, a new beginning for me while my daughter Erica is in a hospital in Iowa with a new heaven sent baby girl just a few minutes old. How brave for mothers to go to the brink of death to bring to earth these angelic souls still swathed in clouds of glory.
If they could only speak and remind us of our heavenly home, and bring us word of our heavenly parents. All we can do is pause, stare, and admire in grateful awe at the godly privilege of creation given us.

I have another daughter, Christina, swathed in clouds of glory still, even at seventeen years old now, although she cannot speak or care for herself in any way at all, we see glimpses of her former self by the way she stoicly bears the infirmities of this life with humility and submissiveness, for the greater good of those who come in contact with her.

This blog then is a way for me to share the things I've learned through long painful trials and errors as we cope with the aftermath of her Meningitis infection contracted when she was only three weeks old.

Epilepsy of the worse kind resulted from the scarrification of the remaining brain tissue, the left hemisphere thinner than the white meat of a mature coconut, a fluid filled gaping hole in its stead. Her right brain only a little less damaged allows for spirit to spirit communication instead of a blank slate, that is, when she is not sick in any other way, in which case we see increase seizures activities with statis seizures and a whole range of seizures known to man.

Hoping to help some of you out there who are struggling with a " Tina" like ours, I will take the time to write down, as we go, the things that are working, or not for us.

The right dosage of her medicinal treatment, of course, is the key to Christina's health quality, and that is what I would like to blog here so that what was hard earned could be had with less pain and suffering, in the least amount of time.

I am a full-time mother as you can imagine, and not a doctor, much less a writer, so whatever I share with you will purely be from my own experience.

You do what you will with this information.

No one cares about your child more than yourself , nor would anyone else spend more time assessing and pondering about her care more than you, even your doctors couldn't possibly dedicate as much time as you do for your child.

Your doctors sees your child 10 minutes or so during an office visit, while the remaining time is yours to watch and monitor and record what is working and what is not.
So it is imperative to find a doctor who will give you some leeway to move the dosages according to needs, after you've demonstrated some aptitude and comprehension on what drug does what on your child.

Christina's current medicinal treatment prioritized by importance in my opinion:

Keppra 750 mg 2 tabs 2 tabs 2 tabs
Lamictal 200mg 1 tab 1 tab 1 tab
Tranxene 7.5mg 2 tabs 3 tabs 3 tabs
Dilantin 50 mg 3/4 tab 3/4 tab 3/4 tab

*These dosages are very dynamic and need to be adjusted constantly at the slightest cold, flu, or infection.

This was the key wisdom to my success in avoiding deathly situations with her because every time she catches anything from any of us or from school, she lays there like a vegetable, unable to swallow her medicine(we crush all her meds together and mix it with watered down honey through a syringe- yes I know most meds say not to crush, but we have no alternative and they still work.), unable to eat, a blank stare, drooling piteously. While her bladder empties all day long from prolonged spasms, her hands and feet icy cold and wet from vessel spasms (I don't know what term they call the latter in English, but the French had a term for it for another condition cited in one of the volumes I bought in Tahiti called" Guides des Plantes Medicinales" Dr G. Pamplona-Roger, Bibliotheque education et Sante) , and I lost it. I'll keep looking.

It explained perfectly what was happening to Tina.

Whenever she was sick, we noticed for years that her hands and feet would be wringing wet and icy cold, the doctors didn't know what to make of it and never address the issue. But when I read that term which I translated as vessel spasms, I could see the correlation of the major symptoms I saw whenever she was not doing well. She would wet everything all day long even when she was barely drinking(we kinda force the liquid in her mouth through a syringe- no needle kind) and that was the time she most likely would pass her normally very hard and large ball of stool, and the wet and icy hands and feet, all smooth tissues were contracting in internal seizures.

Why didn't we think of her vessels constricting when all her visible muscles are seizing, putting her whole body in a Charlie horse-like vice...
So this became our first sure signal of trouble ahead.
If we notice a few shoulder jerks, or a slight arm jerk, or her face pulling to one side, and excessive drooling, I touch her hands and feet to see if the extremities are getting cold and wet and notice the time for later assessment.

Now the trouble is how could we know what is ailing her since she cannot talk?
It could be anything! A tooth infection, a gum infection, a cold, the flu, a urinary infection, an ear infection, and you need to assertain that as soon as possible before the infection sets deep.

That is when you call on all the faith that you have in a God that knows all and hope and pray that you've lived your life well enough to merit and comprehend the guidance of the Holy Ghost who communicates to us mostly through the conduit of the Light of Christ which is in all things which is also called the Spirit of truth.

I envision this spiritual gift as a house in which the architect builds in the electrical wiring system ( The Light of Christ)so that when the people are ready to live in their new home, they pay for a hook up with an electric company and voila, you have electricity running through those wires to light you house( The Holy Ghost) !

But I was always taught that angels will not do anything that man can do for himself. Only when the situation is beyond our capacity will they reach down and help.

It makes perfect sense too. If we are here on earth to be tested whether we will obey God's laws of our own free will, angels cannot come whenever to bail us out. We can only count on His grace after all that we can do.

So from the time I left the hospital with Tina 17 years ago I prayed to God to let me have whatever she was suffering from so I 'd know for sure what was the matter with her so that I can help her.

God was merciful to me and apparently accepted my somewhat archaic proposal because it was the only proposal I had at the time.

Whenever my ears would hurt I looked for an infection in her ears. My teeth hur. Is it really mine or hers? Painful urination- what was the smell of her pee this morning.
No better way to get your attention I'll say!

I will tell you of one of the times I remember when I didn't pay attention and didn't put enough faith in this, our 2 way communication.

Until next time.

Christine